Top Tips for Celebrants – 6
(In these blogs, although I use the word celebrant, the information I share applies to anyone who’s presenting a ceremony of any kind.)
Speaking And Singing – Are They the Same Voice? And the answer is… drum roll!… YES
YES? So, this could be a brief blog – but it won’t be. The speaking and singing voices are the same instrument, just played in a different way. It’s easier to become a pleasant-sounding speaker than a pleasant-sounding singer. This is because when singing, the notes are likely to need to be sustained in a way in which the speaking voice is rarely used. The muscles which are involved need to be more developed and fitter for singing.
A not particularly good singer but who has a pleasant speaking voice can make a decent job of a song which has few sustained notes. That sort of singing isn’t far removed from speech. Give that person a song with longer notes, and they wouldn’t sound nearly as good – he writes from experience. You’d probably expect good singers to have pleasant speaking voices. Well, not always! I’ve heard highly trained opera singers who sing like angels, but speak like goblins.
If they chose, though, they could fairly easily adapt their speech to have the pleasant, melodious resonance of their singing voice. It’s a choice – not unlike that of some gifted mimics who can imitate people with beautiful voices, but who choose, in day-to-day life, to speak exactly as they always have.
If your aim is to improve your speaking, then the singing route is the long way round: it takes much more time to re-educate the muscles to handle sustained notes.
But certain aspects of singing can be helpful in speech training. And singing has the added benefit of taking the speaking voice to places it might not normally go. As a public speaker, it’s good to improve, explore, and know your voice.
First of all, singing can be used as a sort of blunt training instrument. Any form of concentrated, reasonably energetic non-strained vocalising is useful.
So, singing songs, just for the enjoyment, for 20-30 minutes (or longer if you’re up for it) say, 3-4 days a week, will help your speaking voice to be as good is it can currently be – because you’re exercising it, and using it more fully than you might normally. If that’s all the singing you ever do, it’ll be helpful. Making a playlist of songs you like, and which are within your comfortable range, is a good idea for you to sing along with. And, of course, there’s the added bonus that singing raises your spirits.
With a few singing basics, that blunt approach can be sharpened. Don’t stray too high in your voice in the exercises I’m about to suggest, in case you strain it. And a lot of us wobble and waver on the lower notes if we’re singing slowly – so we’ll keep things brisk. This is because the vocal folds (vocal cords) act rather like slacker and slacker rubber bands the lower that you sing, so the upcoming breath has less resistance to push against. If your singing voice isn’t working well down there, it’s hard to keep it steady.
Tension compromises your voice, so before you start this vocal practice, loosen your body with various stretches. You’ve probably got your own way of doing this. I’ll leave that up to you.
Now stand well, gently elongated, as if your body’s being pulled up lightly by a piece of string attached to the crown of your head. Have a feeling of being poised and balanced, so that you could easily step off in any direction. This poised stance has the effect of raising your lower ribs slightly, which increases your breath capacity. And now, as you stand, poised but relaxed, breathe in and out slowly and deeply, several times, through your mouth. Lovely diaphragmatic breathing! (If standing doesn’t come easily, sitting similarly poised can work for you.)
You might be ready for a lie down now… but singing in bed isn’t recommended! 😊 Pick a song with a medium tempo. ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ is perfect. You’re welcome to choose a different song, but I’ll use that one as the example. (If you don’t know it, have a listen online.) I’ve chosen it because the first phrase of the chorus is short, and sounds a bit like a singing exercise: ‘If I were a rich man’. Pitch it somewhere in the middle of your voice range, at the original moderate tempo – or slightly quicker. Sing those words a few times to make sure you’re clear as to what the melody is. When you are clear, I’d like you to replace the six words in the vocal phrase ‘If I were a rich man’ with ‘AH’ sounds– so there’ll be six AHs: AH AH AH AH AH AH, to the tune of If I Were a Rich Man. Practise that a few times. (Give it some energy without overdoing it.) Try singing it with the AHs joining into each other, so it’s a smooth, continuous sound. Also, try it with each AH separated from the next. If you find this second way of doing it jars or clatters a bit, that’s probably because these sounds begin with a vowel. You can make it a bit smoother by putting a tiny ‘H’ in front of each ‘AH’ – so it becomes rather more like ‘HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH’. Now you can congratulate yourself by saying out loud “Nice AHs”.
Next, take the pitch slightly lower. If you have something musical available (or you can access an instrument or tuner online), go down a semitone. If you haven’t, take the pitch down just a little bit. Have a guess – not many of us have perfect pitch.
Repeat the AH AH AH AH AH AHs, and keep dropping the pitch gradually, until it begins to become more difficult to sing lower. Stop at this point.
On each pitch, sing the AH AH AH AH AH AHs twice. Every so often, stop for 15-30 seconds’ rest. If for any reason you feel any discomfort, stop the session.
Repeat the exercise, using the same starting pitch, but this time, go up a small amount each time as you sing the AH AH AH AH AH AHs twice.
If you want to, you can experiment by replacing AH with other sounds, such as OO, OH, AW, EH, EE. You can also try singing the six AHs etc. more slowly to see if you can keep your voice steady on different pitches.
To keep tension at bay, every now and then, give your body a bit of a shake and stretch. Try and maintain that good posture, and breathe through your mouth, from your diaphragm.
Recording yourself sometimes doing this exercise is useful. The aim is to develop a rounder, fuller sound, and then to be able to transfer that from singing to speaking. Making any changes to the voice is a lengthy process, as you’re developing some of your vocal muscles. Any sort of singing is good for your voice, as long as it’s within your comfortable range. You could do scales using the Tonic sol-fa, which is the traditional “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do”. Remember the song in The Sound of Music? Sing the scales up and down, using “Do Re Mi”, etc., or you could use a single vowel for the whole scale (AH, OH, AW and so on). Alter the pitch (the key) slightly each time you do it. The hills may well be alive if you choose this exercise!
There are several benefits that we obtain from singing. Some of them are remarkable and unexpected. To quote Professor Sarah Wilson of the School of Psychological Sciences, Melbourne University:
“Apart from the benefits to the voice itself, singing is a natural therapy. The brain, when scanned while a person is singing, or even thinking about singing, shows activity in the following networks… motor, listening, planning and organisational, memory, language, and emotional. Social bonding and empathy are augmented.
When viewed in the brain, singing turns out to be surprisingly complex, even though to us it seems a relatively simple process. What’s remarkable is that when singing we activate the reward network. The emotions generated lead to the release of dopamine (the feel-good chemical for the brain).
So singing is a form of natural therapy. It lifts the mood as it releases dopamine, as it gives all those networks a workout, bringing neuroprotective benefits for our mental health.”
In the next Top Tips for Celebrants, I’ll be looking at making the most of your voice – as well as improving it.
I hope you’re getting something worthwhile out of these tips. This is the 6th in the series, and there are several more to come. Feel free to share the links. I work with people from many walks of life, and a particular favourite is to engage with celebrants and celebrants-in-training. If you’re thinking about one-on-one guidance about voice and communication, my details are below. I’m happy to have a half-hour Zoom or phone call with you, free of charge, to see if you’d like to do some work with me. And here’s a link to the first blog in the Top-Tips series. Top Tips For Celebrants -1 – Paul Robinson Voice Coaching
07469 957 199 (+44 7469 957 199)